You Learn To Live Without
by WickedisWicked
Summary: A day in the life of the Raydors after Jack leaves. Song fic to "You Learn to Live Without" from If/Then. Rated T for language. One-shot


A/N: this is basically what happens after listening to the If/Then soundtrack one too many times and then watching the latest episode of Major Crimes. Oh, well. I hope you enjoy!

**UPDATE: sorry, guys. I must shave skipped the part of the rules where they said that an author couldn't post copyrighted lyrics. Oops! Oh well, I was reminded by someone threatening to send in an abuse report. So, sorry, if you want the lyrics you'll have to listen to the song yourself. I'm so sorry, once again.**

Disclaimer: I do not own Major Crimes nor do I own If/Then the musical- but they are on my wish list!

Sharon Raydor balanced her six month old daughter, Emily, in one arm while she lightly brushed the hair out of her three year old son's face as he slept peacefully on his small bed. Ricky stirred slightly at his mother's touch, but remained asleep nonetheless.

"Ricky," Sharon said as she tried yet again to rouse the toddler from his deep slumber.

A small mumble was emitted from the boy as he rose into a sitting position.

"'Morning, mommy," he said as he rubbed his eyes. "Did daddy come home yet?"

Sharon looked at Ricky with a sad look in her eyes. Seven months, and he still asked.

"No, sweetie, not yet," Sharon replied as she grabbed her coffee - black, even though it was decaf and would have to trick her body into thinking it was caffeinated.

…

After a shower, which was ice cold at the beginning due to repairs in the building, Sharon made scrambled eggs for herself and her son and got her daughter a bottle. Just like every morning, Emily sat in her infant seat making happy baby noises as Ricky and their mother ate breakfast. Then it was time for the kids to get to daycare and Sharon to clock in at the LAPD.

In the past seven months Sharon's appearance for work seemed to have diminished at an alarming rate. It seemed the more trouble she had at home, the less put-together she looked. For example, today, her copper hair was still damp from the shower and she wore no makeup and carried her glasses with her instead of putting on contacts.

A long day for Sharon due to her colleagues' avoidance of 'the ice bitch of IA' (although she had only tramsferred from vice and narcotics two months earlier after a short maternity leave- bills had to get paid) and many stares along with mumbles including the words 'Jack Raydor' and 'picked up and walked out' and pointed stares at Sharon's left ring finger caused the detective to cave; tonight she would be eating takeout for dinner. With her head bowed, she hurriedly unlocked the door to her small apartment. Mrs. Barton, the elderly widow who lived next door to the Raydors and offered to watch the children when Sharon worked late, greeted her by the front door.

After a quick thank you- after Jack's gambling habit all she could pay people in was courteous thank yous- Sharon brought her food to the kitchen counter and scarfed it down right out of the box. All she really wanted to do that night was to get to bed. As she went towards her desired destination she noticed the note she wrote for herself on the fridge. She needed to pick up her dry-cleaning from the cheaper place she had found merely blocks from her apartment.

She peered at the kitchen table where that month's bills lay, and, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Sharon was able to pay most of them. Though she was glad that her pay check now remained almost solely for paying bills and purchasing other necessities, she saddened at the thought that it was Jack's leaving that caused the sudden influx.

What she needed that night, she decided, was a nice hot bath and, since she was not on duty, she could turn off her cell phone. Her gaze landed on a bottle of red wine. As she pondered the thought, considering how nice a drink would taste right now, she decided against it. The wine would definitely not serve to make her happier.

The bath, finally nice and hot after this morning's shower fiasco, served to melt away any residual images of the day. Today, the case had been an officer involved shooting, and, though detective Flynn was cleared, the vi tim's face still remained clearly ingrained in her mind. It was so atrocious that she could not close her eyes without seeing the young woman's face. Her daughter's shriek stunned her out of her current track of thinking and Sharon towelled off and slipped on a robe to go rock her back to sleep.

As she rocked her now sleepy daughter, she bit back the urge to cry. Only six months old, yet she still had not met her father. Sharon was eight months pregnant when he left and she had walked into their house to find a 'Dear Sharon' letter, and she still remembered the receptionist at the hospital asking who she should call when Sharon checked herself in before having Emily. No one, that's what Sharon replied. No one at all.

With Emily now sleeping, Sharon tucked herself into the twin bed she occupied. The family's current apartment was bought after Jack had left and none of the three bedrooms was big enough for the king mattress she and her husband had shared. Not that she was sure she wanted to keep that bed anyway.

She woke with a start minutes later, suddenly remembering she forgot to check the deadbolt and chain on the door. In her line of work, although she was in IA, she made plenty of enemies. The terrifying part, though, was that most of them carried badges and guns; they were the family and friends of people she had helped put away.

As quietly as she could, Sharon padded through the apartment in her slippers to the front door. Slowly, she clicked the deadbolt into place and slid the chain to offer her family what meagre protection she could. A quick sweep of the room confirmed that she had in fact slid the blinds closed.

Sharon slipped back into her room without disturbing her young ones and wrapped herself up in the colourful blanket which adorned her bed. The lull of the kitchen clock's ticking slowly lulled the detective to sleep.

Another day, another dollar. That was what Sharon's grandfather had always told her. Frankly, though, that day no amount of money could have made her job any more enjoyable. In interrogation, where she finally got a chance to have an interview with a suspect, the police officer who claimed a suspect fired at him and he returned fire got frustrated after her insinuation that the victim had not fired at him by making a snide comment about the 'ice bitch of IA' and how 'it was true her heat had been turned to stone'. Sergeant Jacobson, a member of IA, who, like almost all of the other men on the squad, felt protective of their newest member who happened to be the only woman, tried to tell the suspect to shut it, but was stopped by Sharon. She replied in a tone as smooth as velvet that at least she wasn't shooting innocent teenagers. She then picked up the notes she scribbled in her note book and walked out the door despite the frustrated yelling of the officer being interrogated.

As she walked towards the bull pen, she stopped in the hallway just before. With a deep breath, she plastered a small smile on her face just to prove that she wasn't completely heartless- she just looked that way on the outside. Her transfer to IA had not gone very smoothly. During the transition period she had lost many, if not all, of her friends from Vice and now had only the other members of her squad as work friends.

Sharon was able to leave early enough to pick Ricky and Emily up from daycare that day. It was nearly six o'clock when she did so, but it earned her a grin from Ricky when he saw her instead of mrs. Barton. The small gesture seemed to carve a small crack into her heart as she noticed how much the boy looked like his father when he grinned. With a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, Sharon and her family made it back to her apartment.

That night when Ricky and Emily were asleep, Sharon decide to face the task she had been dreading for months now. She carried a cardboard box she had used for moving into her room and peeled off the packing tape. Carefully, she folded down the flaps and stared at its contents. A suit, a coat and tie, and Jack's favourite dress shoes. She decided that the coat and tie would find their way to Goodwill, but she couldn't bring herself to get rid of the suit. Like the gold band that still stayed on her finger, it was a symbol of their marriage. It was the suit Jack wore when they had gotten married four years earlier. How they had managed to stay married as long as they did was beyond her, but most of the time she chose to remember the good times. Those were the ones that had happened their first year or two of marriage, including Ricky's birth, their honeymoon, the first house they bought together. The memories of years three and four were a lot less pleasant, including Sharon finding Jack with another woman when he was drunk and discovering the enormous amount of money Jack had lost while gambling.

In reality, Sharon wasn't too shocked that Jack had just picked up and walked out. Even before she was pregnant with Emily, something seemed to be wrong.

At the bottom of the box, Sharon notice a small picture that was take of her when she was pregnant with her and Jack's first child. She was heavily pregnant, perhaps eight or nine months so, she was in her favourite pyjamas with her copper coloured hair flying everywhere and her glasses on wielding a chef's knife. She was also smiling. Jack had taken that picture. Slowly, a year began to form in the corner of her eye and her vision started to swim.

Snap out of it, Sharon, she scolded herself. Now is not the time to take a walk down memory lane.

In the months since Jack left she found it easier to focus on the present, not the past. As soon as the first tear fell, she knew that she was done for. All the tears that had threatened to fall at the most random of times now flowed freely from here eyes. They rolled down her cheeks to her chin and form small crystal drops on the picture every time she gave a silent sob. She wondered how many tears constituted enough for seven months of pain. In the past few months, she tried not to count how many days Jack had been gone, or how long she had kept herself from sobbing.

As she dried her eyes, Sharon turned off her bedside lamp. Now that her room was only light by the small amount of light shining through her bedroom curtain, she felt more at peace with the world. The dark soothed wounds that couldn't be seen by the naked eye and everything she was doubtful about seemed to find an answer.

As Sharon's eyes slowly closed and, as the day finished, she thought about how the next day would involve more of the same; jerks at work, her kids at home and more unshed tears and hidden emotions.


End file.
